


2,199 Days

by Jodygoroar



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 04x13, 2199 days apart, Agony, Angst, Confessions of love, Could Be Canon, Emotional Porn, F/M, Feels, Finally together, Fluff, Fluffy Smut, Porn with Feelings, Praimfaya, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Sex, So Many Damn Feels, Spoilers, bellamy hears, bellarke seperated fic, clarke transmitts, how it needs to happen, otp, smut with feels, some strong language, together again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-05 06:24:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11007804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jodygoroar/pseuds/Jodygoroar
Summary: After Praimfaya destroyed the world Bellamy and Clarke spent more than six years apart. During their time Clarke never missed a day transmitting, little did she know Bellamy had been listening all along. Set during the six year seven day time jump of episode 04x13, and just after.





	1. Away

There were nights he’d sit there, huddled tight over the radio, her voice drifting across his very soul. Her words like a calming salve on the torn edges of his heart; ripped at the seam where she’d once been. The frayed strings reaching across the cold emptiness of space and the burning reentry of Earth’s atmosphere; a conundrum Raven was days from solving.

Their first priority, after stabilizing the oxygen systems had been to hug one another tightly and silently say their ‘thank you’s and goodbyes to Clarke. She had sacrificed herself once again to save her friends, choosing to meet her end in Praimfaya to give them a chance at living.

Bellamy stood beside Raven, his heart ripped in half. He’d left part of himself on Earth with her and it had just been turned to ash in a nuclear blast of apocalyptic proportions. In that moment, as he watched the tidal wave of irradiated fire engulf what had once been a beautiful blue marble, he vowed to himself that he would live for her. Every decision he made from now until the day he died would be made for her, and for the love he would carry, unspoken, tightly locked away, like a stone in his chest for the rest of his days.

After a bit of rest and mourning for the planet, they set about creating a sustainable environment aboard The Ring.

Murphy had suggested they give their home a new name. “The Ark was a tough place for all of us, one we wouldn’t choose to return to. Yeah, we had to come back to the shithole, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a better stay this time around,” he shrugged, wrapping his arm lovingly around Emori.

Bellamy nodded in agreement as Monty and Harper smiled at one another. Echo didn’t much care and Raven was ambivalent so long as it was short and easy, should she ever get the com system back up. 

Monty had suggested calling it The Ring, Bellamy suspected it was a bit of Jasper-inspired genius. Either way, it had stuck and they’d been The Ring Station ever since.

Raven gave strict orders about repairs and critical systems that needed to be made operational. She fell comfortably into the role of Captain and Commander, which nobody seemed to mind. Having escaped the end of the world, facing five years (minimum) in a tin can in space with 6 other people, really rearranged your priorities, and old grudges lose their importance. Suddenly, they were a cohesive team, determined, like worker bees, to build their safe hive, protect their queen, and survive.

Almost six months in, Raven and Bellamy were twisted in a tornado of wires and electrical components. “…the wire strippers, not the clamps,” Raven was correcting him. Bellamy handed her the tool and she disappeared once more under the console. His heart pounded, his palms sweaty, she was so close to getting the coms up, he could feel it in his bones. Bellamy might get to talk to Octavia today.

“All right, that should do it.” Raven flicked a switch on the board and the thing lit up like the night sky. Turning to one another, brief, hopeful smiles split their faces. She picked up the receiver and hesitated a moment before passing it to him, “You do it.”

Before he could press the button, a crackle burst from the speakers followed by a moment of static and then the most glorious sound Bellamy had heard in his entire life, it sent electricity through his veins, bringing his mummified heart out of the darkness.

“Come in Ark Ring. Do you read me? Over.”

Silence.

Bellamy pressed his thumb into the com until his nail turned white. “Clarke! This is The Ring Station. We read you. Clarke, it’s me. We thought… I thought you were dead,” hearing her voice come through the speakers, distorted and turned ugly by the static of a radioactive atmosphere was the happiest he had been in his entire existence. “Clarke, do you read me? Over.”

“I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t even know if you’re alive. I don’t know if any of you made it to the Ring, let alone this long up there. It’s been 164 days since Praimfaya,” Clarke spoke into the void of empty space, unaware that Bellamy and the others could hear her. Raven worked for days after that, exhausting every possibility in her attempts to get a radio signal off The Ring and to the ground. 

Eventually she had to focus herself on other, more important systems on the station. Bellamy kept at it in the mornings, which was when she transmitted.

Every morning, as the sun broke across the eastern coast of what had been the United States, Bellamy headed to the com center and huddled himself around the speakers, hoarding her transmissions for himself. Most days Clarke would give an account of the earth’s transformation after Praimfaya. For weeks, the descriptions remained the same, black ash, charred remains, mountains of rubble. She counted the days, marking important dates she could remember, Unity Day, her parent’s birthdays. She tried to remember other birthdays and got close a few times, she named Bellamy’s on the exact date.

Once in a while, Clarke would think of something important for Raven or Harper, or one of the others. Eventually, her messages turned into something more. As the weeks and months turned into years, it felt like somehow, she knew he was the only one listening, and her words became a secret gift meant only for him.

***

“Day 365. It’s been one year since Praimfaya, Bellamy. I thought you would have gotten the radio going by now, if it could be fixed at all. I still have hope that you’re out there. It’s what keeps me going most days, the thought that maybe you’re up there, alive, waiting out the storm. Four more years and you can come home.”

***

“Day 413. I found a piece of stream today where there are some crabs living. I’ve been eating nothing but charred evergreen meat for weeks, it was like a feast. I wish you could have been here. I know we’ll meet again, someday, and we’ll have a feast.”

***

“Day 498. Things are hard lately, it’s supposed to be summer but the nuclear fallout has damaged the planet bad enough that I’ve had nothing but winter since you left. I’m hoping by next year the seasons will return. I miss the warmth of the sun and the green of growing things. I miss your voice.”

***

“Day 536. Almost a year and a half. I’ve been finding more and more options for food outside. Hardy things are returning first, crustaceans, roots, beetles a plenty,” Bellamy laughed in the darkness of the com room at the disgusted noise she made. “They’re high in protein and there are a lot of them. They keep me strong, but a fine delicacy they are not.”

***

“Day 601. I miss you Bellamy. I miss Raven and Monty, Harper, even Murphy, Emori and Echo. I miss Octavia, Kane.” His heart ached for her in the silence. “I miss my mom, Bellamy,” she whispered. “I miss you.”

***

“Day 682 and I may be going insane. If you were up there you would have said something. Raven would have gotten the radio to work. What if I’m just going crazy, talking to myself, to empty space?”

“Don’t give up, Clarke. I’m here. I’m coming back to you,” his chest ached under the weight of his emotions. The love he carried for her grew every day, straining against his ribs, swelling and pressing painfully on his organs, as though it had a life force of its own.

“I don’t know how long I can be alone…”

***

“Day 730. Two years,” she sighed and he tasted it in the static, mechanically-scrubbed air. “Two years since Praimfaya. The last of my scars have faded. The nightblood kept me alive, but my mother’s vision still came true, but you can’t tell anymore now.”

Tears stung his eyes, hearing this news. She said it as though he should know, she must have talked about it often in the beginning. There had been months she’d been transmitting before he began receiving. Who knows what other details he had missed in that time.

***

“Day 777, is that supposed to be good luck? I don’t know, I thought I heard that somewhere. I feel like maybe Finn said it once. Maybe it was the night he told me grounders used to wish on shooting stars.

The Ark looks like a shooting star sometimes when it flies by. Not shooting really, more like drifting slowly across the night sky. Sometimes I make wishes on you. I wonder if you hear them?”

***

“Day 815. You are never going to believe it, Bellamy. I don’t really believe it myself. I spent all morning trying to think of a clever way to tell you but I’m too in shock to be clever.”

The silence dragged on agonizingly, Bellamy pressed on the useless button on the radio, hope and wonder coloring his voice as he asked the void, “What did you find, Clarke?”

“I found a nightblood: a young girl. I think she might be about eleven, maybe twelve. She won’t speak yet, and she’s small but living out here doesn’t make for big growing, so who knows?”

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, Clarke wouldn’t be alone, now. She had someone to talk to who could talk back. An irrational wave of enraged jealousy flooded through him. He missed her more than anything else. More than Octavia, more than the earth, more than the freedom and joy of fresh mountain air. Clarke had been his everything and now she didn’t even know if he was alive. Ducking his head low over the radio, he let the tears fall silently down his face.

***

“Day 863. Happy birthday to me. Twenty-one years old. What a way to celebrate: trying to get any kind of words out of my little nightblood. She still won’t speak to me, but she seems all right otherwise, she eats well and is gaining weight now. I think you would like her, Bellamy. I wonder if she would remind you of Octavia? She’s fierce and strong, but she’s curious and caring like you. Don’t worry, you’ll meet her someday.”

“She sounds amazing, Clarke.”

***

“Day 912. Two and half years. Officially half way. Somehow it still feels like forever until I’ll see you. It feels like an eternity since I’ve seen you. Only nine hundred and twelve days to go.”  
Her sigh shook the floor beneath his feet, crackling with the crushing weight of feeling she put into the sound.

***

“Day 924. Her name is Madi, Bell. She won’t say another word, but she told me her name! Her voice is small and scared, but determined and the best sound I’ve heard in more than nine hundred days.

***

“Day 1000... I miss you.”

***

“Day... ugh, it’s day, 1094. Tomorrow marks three years. Madi has started speaking regularly to me now. Mostly short sentences and all in Trigedasleng, but that’s not a problem. I want to teach her English, but there’s time for that. For now, we’re working on survival skills and a bit of history. Her eyes light up when I tell her about before the first Praimfaya. Learning about the people that came before her, I think it gives her hope: to know that others have survived what we are surviving right now.”

Bellamy smiled, picturing a dark-haired girl sitting beside Clarke as her hair glowed like sunshine in the light of their campfire.

“I hope you survived, too.”

***

“Day 1135. There’s finally a real section of green down here, now. Maybe a mile or so of green leaves and saplings sprouting up. I bet it’s big enough now for you to see it from the Ring.”

A smile lightened his brooding features, he could see the patch of green near where Polis had been. Knowing she was in there somewhere, brought a bit of light into his bleak existence.

“Watching the earth come back to life gives me hope. It keeps me going. That and talking to you every day. I still don’t know for sure if you’re up there or not, if any of you are, but I have hope. I have to have hope... or what was it all for?”

***

“Day 1200. Roughly speaking it’s been forty months. Yikes. Sometimes I count in different ways. One thousand and two hundred days. One hundred and seventy-one (and a half) weeks. Forty months. Three and a third years. I don’t really want to calculate the hours or minutes, yet.”

Shaking his head, Bellamy stared at the scratched surface of the com center. He’d been marking the days by scratching lines into its metallic face. He’d done the math.

Assuming they would remain on track with repairs and Raven could get her Hail Mary fuel idea to work and they would leave on the fifth anniversary, he would have spent 43,800 hours apart from her. 43,800 hours. 2,628,000 minutes. 157,680,000 seconds. Each one ticking by like a grain of sand in the hour glass of the universe. They scratched at his nerves, as though the sand fell through his veins before counting the seconds down. They were at about thirty thousand hours so far. That math he refused to do; the remaining hours and minutes.

***

“Day 1350. Not much to report today. Nothing new, Madi has decided she wants to learn to speak English. She wants to be ready for the day when the bunker opens and you come back to the ground. I talk about you all so often she feels like she knows you already. She’s excited to meet you. Four hundred and seventy-five more days.”

***

“Day 1401. Bellamy. I can’t remember the sound of your voice anymore. It’s easy to remember faces. With all the charcoal around, your face is drawn on every flat surface I can find. I can remember every freckle sprinkled across your cheeks, the exact angle of your lips, the curl of dark hair over your face. I can see the shape of your jaw and the flecks of light in your eyes,” she sighed and he closed his eyes, listening intently to her voice. Even through the distance and interference, the sound sent chills down his spine. His heart sped up when her voice came back through the speakers.

“God, Bell, I can’t imagine never seeing you again, spending the rest of my life without telling you... without saying it...”

She was silent for so long he thought she’d gone for the day.

“Bellamy, if you’re up there, if you can hear me... I love you. I think I realized back when I closed that drop ship door. It was like I’d cleaved an entire piece of myself off with that lever. I didn’t realize it for a long time, by then it was too late. Then there was Mt Weather, and ALIE, and the end of the world. I should have told you that day on the beach. I should have let you say what you wanted, but I was afraid.”

His chest clenched tight at her words, her soul pouring through the miles between them. It was as if she had taken the feeling right from his cells and put it all into words.

“I love you, Bellamy, and I hope you can hear me. Someday I’ll tell you in person.”

***

“Day 1460. Only one more year. I was doing some more math today. I was thinking about birthdays and ages. Madi will be almost fifteen when you come back. I’ll be twenty-three, and you’ll be twenty-eight. 

Wow. We’ve lost so much time, you and I.”

***

“Day 1554. Madi and I saw fish in the stream today! The earth is healing Bellamy, and it will be safe for you soon. We’re working on clearing the rubble from the bunker. When Polis was destroyed the city came crashing down onto the temple doors. There’s at least twenty feet of stone and debris between us and the thirteen clans.

Madi is strong and stubbornly focused on clearing the space, but with just the two of us I’m afraid we won’t get far enough fast enough. You might have to help us dig when you get here,” she laughed and it was like music in his ears.

***

“Day 1631. We’ve made some good progress with the bunker dig, but Madi pulled a muscle in her leg and we’ve been forced to stop until she heals. She makes the days a lot better, Bell, but the nights... the nights are torture. I lay awake and think of you, of the time we wasted when I could have told you.

I wonder if I’ve convinced myself you felt the same. Did I imagine all those longing glances and lingering touches? The last day we were together, you held me so close, when you traced your fingers down my face…”

Closing his eyes, he could see the blue-green of hers, the tears slipping down her cheeks when he’d had to tell her the radio to the bunker had given out, that she wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to her mom. 

He remembered the touch of her silken hair under his fingertips, the feel of her sinking into his arms, and the smell of her as the world ended around them. His heart was mending and breaking all at the same time.

“Only one hundred and ninety-four more days.”

***

“Day 1821. We’re almost there, so close I can almost taste you.”

***

“Day 1826. Yesterday was five years, I guess it was too optimistic to hope you’d arrive the exact day. Who knows if you even know that today is today? I’ll keep watching for you, I’m here. Waiting.”

His gut lurched at the disappointment in her voice. They’d known for months they wouldn’t make the five years date. Raven had come up with the genius idea to convert the entire system to biofuel, something she’d read about in an old text from Mt Weather. They’d been using some of the algae farms and some of the byproduct from the waste systems to build up enough of a fuel supply to safely reenter the atmosphere. By Raven’s estimates it would be another year before they would have enough to make a survivable crash in the water.

“I’m here, Bellamy, aim for the green.”

“We will, Princess,” he whispered into the empty void. “I’m coming, don’t give up on me.”

***

“Day 1913. It’s been a few months now since it was safe to come down. I don’t know where you are, all I know is my heart tells me you’re out there. I think I would feel it in my soul if you were gone. Surely there would be a yawning black hole of vacant space inside me if you were dead.”

***

“Day 2068. Still waiting, still hoping. Madi is nearly as fluent in English as Trigedasleng, she’s great. Very curious about you and the others, she wants to learn about computers from Raven and Monty. She’s excited to hear about Echo and Emori’s adventures in space. Her enthusiasm and hope help mine to persevere. The more days that pass since the fifth anniversary the easier it is to keep waiting. I know, that sounds crazy, but now that the disappointment has passed I can think more clearly. I’m sure Raven is still hard at work solving the fuel issue. Don’t worry, she’ll fix it.”

***

“Bellamy. If you can hear me, if you’re alive… it’s been two thousand, one hundred and ninety-nine days since Praimfaya. I don’t know why I still do this every day. Maybe it’s my way of staying sane, not forgetting who I am. Who I was.”

She fell silent a moment, and Bellamy looked to the controls, waiting.

“It’s been safe for you to come down for over a year now. Why haven’t you?”

His heart lurched, jumping into his throat at the pain in her voice. “We’re so close, Princess, just another day or so.”

“The bunker’s gone silent, too. We tried digging them out for a while, but there was too much rubble. I haven’t made contact with them, either.

Anyway, I still have hope. Tell Raven to aim for the one spot of green and you’ll find me. The rest of the planet, from what I’ve seen, basically sucks, so...”

Smirking at her words, Bellamy tucked the last of his things into a sack, preparing to clear out of the com room for the last time. By Clarke’s next transmission they should be plummeting to the ground once more.

“Never mind,” she said, stopping his breath in his throat. “I see you.”

Every nerve in his body were set on fire. He leapt at the com system, six years’ worth of knowing the radio didn’t work, flying out of his mind. “Clarke, that’s not us! Shit!”

He dove out of the com room and raced for the control center, where he knew Raven would be, shouting across the small station to her, “Raven! Raven!”

“What do you want, Blake? Your constant nagging is not helping me focus, you know,” Raven huffed at him, used to his endless requests for updates and estimated departure times.

“Raven, we have to get to the ground,” he told her firmly. “Now.”

“What? Bellamy, what’s wrong?” she demanded in her no-nonsense way.

“Clarke’s transmission: she saw a ship!” he shouted.

Raven just stared at him, clearly not grasping the gravity of the situation.

“It’s not us!” he shouted through gritted teeth.

It hit Raven like a ton of bricks, her eyes lit up with understanding. Sprinting into action she screamed for their crew, “Monty, Harper, Murphy, Emori, Echo! All hands on deck! And I mean NOW!”

They appeared from the shadows, as if seeping from the very seems of the ancient station.

“What’s the problem, Captain?” Murphy asked, looking rather unconcerned.

“Get your shit. We’re going home.”


	2. Coming Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and the rest are reunited on the ground.

Exactly six hours, thirty-eight minutes, and fourteen seconds after Clarke’s last transmission, Bellamy, Raven, Monty, Harper, Murphy, Emori, and Echo sat strapped into their 115-year-old, oversized tuna can of a dropship. Raven was running through the last of the preflight checks, flipping switches and analyzing gauges.

“All right, crew, release in ten. Say goodbye Ring,” Raven announced.

“Nine.”

Suddenly, despite his anxiety to get to Clarke and his excitement to see the ground again, Bellamy had a fleeing moment of melancholy.

“Eight.”

After all, The Ring had kept them alive all this time. It was gloomy, cold, and lonely, but it had become their home. In the long six years in space, they had become a family, and now things would change irrevocably.

“Seven.”

Looking over at Monty and Harper, Bellamy spotted them holding hands tightly through their gloves.

“Six.”

Murphy smiled cockily over at him while Emori clutched at her restraints, still uncomfortable with the idea of intentionally falling into Earth’s gravitational pull.

“Five.”

Echo rolled her eyes at everyone’s drama, not really caring whether they made it, just grateful to be leaving space.

“Four.”

Bellamy closed his eyes tight, picturing her as he had seen her the last time.

“Three.”

The radio was clutched tight in his hands. Raven had learned a few months back why they couldn’t get a signal to the ground. He hadn’t quite understood why, but it had something to do with the damage the antennas had sustained during the exodus mixed with the field of radiation that had stood between them and the ground.

“Two.”

They all took a collective breath.

“One. Release.” The ship lurched as the Ring released its hold on them.

The next moment, the boosters roared into life, pushing them away from the station, aiming for that precious patch of green below. Then they were plummeting through the screeching fires of Earth’s atmosphere.

Bellamy pressed his thumb to the radio as he sat falling once more to an unknown situation on the ground.

“Clarke, come in. Do you hear me? Over.” The sound of static filled every square inch of the ship.

Silence. A cacophony of silence assaulted his ears.

“We might still be too far for the signal to reach,” Raven shouted over the barrage of noise smashing against the hull, the smallest ray of hope still seeping into her voice. “Keep trying.”

He squeezed his eyes tight, and with every ounce of energy in his being he willed her to hear him, “Clarke, please. We’re coming down, now. Please tell me you’re there. Over.” static filled the space once more, then something that sent lightning through his mind and love singing through his dried-out veins.

“...lamy...really...you...” it was faint, broken by interference, but he would have known her voice in any lifetime.

Crushing the radio in his palm, and fiddling anxiously with the dials, he shouted, “Clarke! I hear you! Clarke, come in!”

“Bellamy? You’re alive?” the sound of hope sang clear through the radio speakers; Clarke heard him for the first time in more than six years. Tears of relief and joy slipped silently from his eyes.

“Yes, Clarke. We’re coming down now. I’m so sorry we’re late,” he said. “Getting back took a little longer than we planned,” he chuckled.

“I would have waited until the end of the world to hear your voice again, Bellamy,” she confessed, and in his mind, he saw the smile spreading across her face, tears streaking down her cheeks, mirroring his own.

“Clarke, are you safe? We heard your message, who came down before us?” the relief of connecting with her again was rapidly wearing off, panic taking its place in his chest, pulling his nerves tight. His breath caught in his throat as he waited for her response.

“Yes, Bellamy, I’m safe. Now get down here and I’ll tell you everything,” she assured him, her voice a guiding beacon of light and life and love.

They splashed down ten minutes later in the lake that had turned a beautiful and confusing shade of blue-green in their absence. It was a much louder and more wobbly landing than his first time coming to Earth. Suspecting the water landing had a little something to do with it, Bellamy couldn’t help the insane grin that spread across his freckled features as he rushed to free himself from the restraints. Excitement was bursting like fireworks in his head, making his hands tremble. Bellamy began checking the others and helping them from their seats, his big heart still getting the best of him.

He reached for Raven’s belt when she grabbed his hand, squeezing his fingers through their space suits.

“Bell, I got it.” She smiled at him, knowing just how badly he needed to open that door.

Raven had been his everything in space. In the beginning, before they learned Clarke had survived, she’d been his confidant, his therapist, his shoulder to cry on, and his ear to scream at when it was just too much. Raven knew the pain Bellamy suffered, she remembered how he had been there for her after Finn. Now, looking in his eyes through layers of space shield and plastic, she was so happy for him.

“Go,” she whispered, her eyes overflowing with emotion.

Glancing quickly at the others for assurance, Bellamy found encouraging nods and shooing hands.

He didn’t need to be told a third time, turning immediately to the door, he pulled the lever and they were instantly blinded by the flooding glow of sunset. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Slowly he found shapes and shadows in the pink light of their homecoming. A single shape emerged from the pastel fog, the silhouette of the only person in the universe that mattered to him.

It was like being born.

It was like finding heaven.

It was like every second of the last six years had been worth it.

One hundred and ninety million, eighty thousand seconds had brought him to this moment, here, to her.

Clarke stood before him, tears rolling slowly down her beautiful face. She was just as he remembered her. Bright and full of life, her presence shining like a thousand suns. Her hair was shorter, though, falling just to her chin. It was laced with red, as it had been the last time they had been apart. She glowed like an angel in the late day sun. She was swathed in rough leather, dirt smudged across her cheek

She was tired and worn.

She was perfect.

“Bellamy,” her voice was barely a whisper, but he heard her loud and clear, it rang out like church bells in his ears.

Tugging the helmet roughly from his head, Bellamy stepped off the dropship, his feet hitting solid ground. He tossed the useless thing aside as his long strides ate up the distance between them. Bellamy ripped his gloves off, needing his bare hands to be the first thing that touched her. He was one step from her when she finally moved, flying into his open arms.

Clarke threw her arms around his waist, entangling herself in him so completely. She’d never leave his side again. His hands traced every inch he could reach, running over her shoulders, down the ridge of her spine. They found her hair, carding through the short golden waves, and he pressed his nose into the silken locks, breathing in the scent of the trees, the rain, and everything that was just Clarke.

“I’m home, Princess,” he murmured into her ear, “and I heard everything.”

At that, Clarke pulled away only enough to look up into his eyes, her fingers playing in the folds at the waist of his space suit. “You heard me?” she asked, her eyes bright with fresh tears of joy and wonder.

Smiling down at her, Bellamy took a red lock of hair between his fingers, savoring the texture. He looked into her silver-blue eyes, “I love you, too, Clarke.”

She gasped slightly, her lips parting before breaking into an enormous smile. Clarke took his face gently but firmly in her hands and gave up on excuses and waiting. Reaching up on her toes, Clarke pressed her lips to his.

Bellamy’s entire universe exploded, reborn from the energy of that kiss. It was like coming home.

He was coming home; to her. She was his home, his life, his heart, his entire world. So long as he had her, he had everything he would ever need.

And he was never letting her go ever again.

“Well it’s about damn time,” Murphy said, as Monty laughed heartily from the drop ship door. They stood there, helmets in hands, staring lovingly at the two friends who had kept them alive all this time. The two people who had led them, kept them safe. The two people who had sacrificed more than any of the rest of them. Clarke and Bellamy had given up their happiness, their very lives to allow them this chance to see the horizon again.

“Raven!” Clarke smiled brightly at the mechanic, reaching with one hand while the other arm remained wound snuggly around Bellamy.

Raven limped swiftly to her, embracing them both in a gigantic hug. Before she knew what was happening, Clarke was swaddled in the middle of the warmest hug she’d had in far too long. They wrapped their bodies around one another, even Emory and Echo couldn’t resist the celebratory moment.

“Clarke?” the voice was small and unfamiliar, drifting to them from the direction Clarke had come.

Popping her head from the middle of the group, Clarke spotting Madi standing with quiet curiosity, “Come here, little Nightblood.”

Madi moved towards them. Emori and Echo stepped forward first, and introduced themselves in Trigedasleng. Clarke had told her all about the mighty grounder warriors who had fled Praimfaya in a rocket to space. She’d told Madi everything she could think of about every one of them. Clarke had told stories of all the heroes in her life.

Monty, Harper, and Murphy joined the trio of grounder ladies, introducing themselves to Clarke’s protégé. Raven lingered close to Clarke, unwilling to let her second best friend in the entire universe far from sight or sound.

The sun had disappeared beyond the horizon by the time they decided to move from the landing spot.

Full of excitement, Madi led the way to their camp, while Clarke filled them in on the essential details of that morning’s unexpected arrival. The Eligius Corporation ship had been lost in deep space since before the first bombs went off. The miners, had been made into nightbloods and sent into space to pay for their crimes on Earth. The mission was intended as a redemption program for non-violent offenders and had been set to return right around the time of Praimfaya. It had been delayed by a malfunctioning navigation system on board.

“But how are they still alive?” Harper asked.

“Yea, they should be like two hundred by now,” Murphy quipped.

Clarke shrugged slightly, “They had some sort of stasis chamber technology that was brand new, experimental, and basically a prototype on steroids. It was fairly untested but it kept them alive.”

Bellamy nodded affectionately at Clarke, her hand still locked tight in his.

“The problem for them was that while they slept away the distance their ship malfunctioned. Well actually I guess it wasn’t a problem at all, they would have landed in an apocalyptic death wave,” she shrugged again.

“Here we are!” Madi announced up ahead.

Bellamy looked around, confused, before realizing exactly where they were.

“Welcome home,” Clarke said, throwing her free hand wide, presenting the space to them.

“Genius,” spoken quietly with a proud-as-hell smile was all Raven could muster.

“Figures,” Murphy harrumphed, earning strange looks from Emori and Echo.

“I never thought I’d be so happy to be back here,” Harper mused.

Monty, always the practical one, surprised her by saying sarcastically, “Just couldn’t find anything better, huh?”

Clarke looked to Bellamy, bashful, “It felt like home. It felt like you were still out there when I was here. Like I was really just waiting for you to come back home.”

They stood in what had once been green pasture, then charred battlefield, then barren irradiated wasteland. Now it was filled with what looked to be a small garden and campfire with seating for twelve. The one staple that had been there, always, was a single ship, blackened at the base, tilted just a bit to one side.

It had been their first home here on Earth, it was where they buried their dead. Wells was here, and the seventeen others they lost in those first days. Except for Charlotte, she, and a few others, had markers, but there were no bodies beneath them. After Clarke had left the island, this was the first place she came. Without a single thought in her mind or direction for her feet, she’d found herself stepping into the shadow of the dropship.

This was where she found Madi. The young nightblood had discovered the drop ship just hours before the death wave hit. It had saved her and sheltered her until Clarke arrived. She was a part of this place, and it was a part of her in a way she didn’t know how to explain. Seeking confirmation from her long-lost friends, Clarke found nothing but acceptance, admiration, and love.

Raven scooped up Clarke’s free hand in hers, that brilliant smile lighting up the twilight, “It’s Perfect.”

Glancing around, she saw the others nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm at their captain’s proclamation.

Bellamy leaned close to her, his breath fanning across her cheeks, sending rivers of molten lava through her long dormant veins, “It’s home.”

Clarke’s head spun as she looked up at him, all big brown eyes, tussled curls, and freckles. She had missed the dimple in his chin and the way he tilted his head so slightly to the side when she made him laugh. The curve of his lips and exact position of every freckle and scar was something she urgently needed to commit to memory.

Locking her eyes on his, Clarke tugged on the hand that had been in hers since they landed, leading him away from the group that was settling into their new home. Madi would see to whatever they needed, and they would not blame her or Bellamy for sneaking off after all this time. She knew the perfect place to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be exactly what you think/want it to be. Be prepared. Six years is a long time with no sexual contact. O.O


	3. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and Clarke have the much needed and earned alone time, please note the updated rating.

Clarke led Bellamy silently through the forest, her footsteps as quiet as any grounder he’d ever met. She was more grounder than the rest of Skaikru, now. At that moment, Bellamy tasted the vastness of distance that lay between them still. Six years they had been apart, forging new relationships, healing and evolving into the people that Praimfaya has forged.

She felt new to him, unknown and yet familiar all in the same breath.

Knowing their general location Bellamy guessed the direction she was leading him. She picked her steps carefully through the infantile forest floor. He followed her lead, placing his large boots where she walked. Tugging him around the hillside, Clarke glanced back over her shoulder at him. She wanted to see his face when it happened.

The stars twinkled brightly in the sky above and for a moment they stood silently, mesmerized by the intense sensation of being suddenly, completely alone with the other. He was thinking about reaching out his fingers to touch her face when a light behind her caught his eye.

Clarke watched the glow of irradiated insects paint the love of her life in blue light. It was brighter and more vivid than what they’d seen after first arriving on the ground. His eyes sparkled with the light, a smile splitting his face.

“What...?” he wondered, his voice full of laughter.

“Nuclear fallout does weird things to the insect population,” she smirked at him, thoroughly enjoying the moment.

“This is pretty amazing,” Bellamy murmured, ducking his head low to breath in the scent of her hair, “but not exactly what I had in mind.”

His voice rumbled low along her nerves like gravel. His chest was close enough to hers she could feel the shallow movement of his breathing, the heat of his body seeping through the threadbare t-shirt he wore. She turned her face up to meet his, seeking the taste of him, “Bell...”

Bellamy took her face gently in his large hands, calloused from years of mechanical work. He stroked his thumbs down her cheeks, across her eye lashes, touching the little mole at the corner of her mouth. He traced the lines of Clarke’s features, mapping every angle and curve in his mind. “I missed you so much, Clarke,” Bellamy leaned his forehead against hers, every bit of contact sending electric heat through his limbs. “Not being able to talk to you… hearing your voice every day and not being able to answer you… it was torture.”

Fresh tears sprang to her eyes, “What would you have said?”

The corners of his lips turned up at that. “Well, I would have said thanks first, for saving us, for getting us to the Ring,” he pressed a kiss tenderly to her right temple. “I would have told you I was listening, you asked that for months after we picked up your transmission,” another kiss, at the corner of her jaw.

“That would have been very good to hear,” she hummed, his touch was making it hard to focus.

“I would have answered every single wish you made on us,” his fingers slid down her neck, grazing the bare skin of her shoulders.

“You answered them all today,” her own fingers found their way into his dark curls. They had itched for millions of minutes, longing to be here.

“Mm,” he agreed, pressing his lips to the corner of her jaw, nibbling gently at the soft spot below. “When you asked me what you should teach Madi I would have said, ‘Everything. Tell her about the heroes from the sky, the girl from under the floor who saved the human race. The boy who made a mistake and sacrificed himself to prevent a war. The kid who lost a friend but found a bunker. Tell her about a golden-haired hero who marched into a mountain to save her family, who climbed a tower and chose to stay behind to give her friends their best chance.”

At that Clarke laughed, full and free as she hadn’t in ages. “I told her about the hero who marched into the mountain, but it wasn’t a golden-haired girl. Most of my stories centered around a certain arrogant man with brown curls and freckles.” Delicately, she dipped her pinky into the dimple in his chin. God, she had missed that little dent.

Suddenly, the tentative caresses weren’t nearly enough. The air crackled in the small space between them. “Clarke,” without another word, Bellamy claimed her mouth with his. Years of denying, waiting, yearning came crashing down around them.

Between searing kisses down her neck, he managed to ask, “Where…?”

But before she could answer, he sealed her mouth with his, claiming her for himself; marking himself as hers. Clarke’s knees gave way under the power of his touch, fire scorched through her veins, setting every cell ablaze. Bellamy lopped his arms protectively around her, holding her weight against him. She could feel the heat of his skin through the thin layers of their clothing.

Sliding his hands down her back, Bellamy grasped her backside and lifted her off the ground. Instinctively, Clarke wrapped her legs around his middle, clutching him to her. Between his strong arms and her legs anchored around his hips she felt like she was floating in zero g. Maybe it was the ecstasy of the moment, maybe it was having him home again, maybe it was that they had finally admitted to themselves just how critical the other was to their survival, to their happiness. She didn’t give a single thought to figuring it, every last bit of her was consumed by Bellamy’s touch.

They had lost all awareness of their surroundings, completely oblivious to the spring rain that had begun to slowly drench them. The drizzle intensified, fat raindrops splashing against their faces. Bellamy pulled his lips reluctantly from hers, looking up into the thunder clouds, “Is there somewhere we can go?”

His eyes twinkle with mischief and burned with a passion that matched the inferno inside her. Clarke loosened her grip on his middle and slid down the length of his body. Bellamy held her against the hard planes of his stomach and over his erection until her toes hit solid ground.

After a moan and a deep breath, Clarke took his hand and led him forward through the rain. “This way,” she murmured, her voice rough with desire.

Bellamy would have followed Clarke to the ends of the universe just to keep his eyes on her. She didn’t lead him much further from the dropship, they walked another five minutes when she stopped suddenly and turned to him.

Clarke looked at him expectantly. His brain was working on much less blood than usual so he looked around dumbly a moment before realization struck. “Not the most romantic spot,” he smirked.

An enormous smile lit up her eyes, “I’ve had six years to keep myself busy, just wait.”

Clarke released his hand, stooping down to unlock the bunker door. With a forceful yank the hatch opened. She took his hand back into hers and stepped into the darkness.

As his feet hit the bottom step the room illuminated with soft light. The bones of the space were familiar to him, he’d been in the bunker once or twice before. To his memory the space had been filled with nick knacks from a family that never arrived. It also had held the dead body of the grounder that Finn had executed in their frantic search for Clarke. Six years was such a long time, Clarke had completely changed the bunker.

The walls were covered with the faces of the people who had left her here to die in Praimfaya. Raven was etched in charcoal over and over, smiling that brilliant smile of hers. Monty and Harper were drawn together, kissing, holding one another. There were drawings of Abby and Kane, and others of lost friends. Lexa took up a bit of space alongside Wells and Finn. Jasper, Lincoln and Octavia, her father, even Murphy, Emory, and King Roan had their fair share of real estate on the bunker’s walls.

But the face that looked back at him from every direction was his own. She’d drawn him thousands of times, in charcoal, in colored pencil, in something like looked like rich soil. Bellamy saw himself for the first time how Clarke had seen him. He saw his freckles as constellations on his skin, a map of stars leading her right to him. He saw the look in his eyes the day they fled the fire, the day he left without her. He saw all the drawings of him in space, looking out that damn window at the orange husk of Earth. Clarke must have drawn him at that window every day, just as he had done every day without her. Somehow, deep in her artist’s soul she’d known that he was alive, that he was there, and he was waiting to come back to her.

Love surged through every fiber of his being and Bellamy couldn’t contain himself a moment longer. Scooping Clarke up in his arms, he vowed to himself that he would make up for every single moment she had waited for him. Clarke, the girl who waited, alone in an angry dead world, while humanity slumbered beneath the ground and far away near the stars her love fought to return to her.

He pressed her back against the nearest wall, pinning her between his hard chest and the pages that now crinkled and fell from their places like snow. Claiming her mouth, he explored her body with his hands. Images of the last time he’d held her in his arms came unbidden to his mind. They’d been separated by more than their radiation suits. The entire world had been pressed between them like decaying flowers in the pages of an ancient book. His fingers had wrapped themselves around her braided hair, aching to slide into the mass and pull it free.

Now there was time, and not a damn thing stood in their way.

Setting her feet back on the ground, Bellamy traced his fingertips along her jaw, burying them in the blonde and red waves. Clarke tugged fiercely at the hem of his shirt, practically ripping it over his head in her haste.

Only once before had she seen him without his shirt. At the time, she would have denied enjoying the sight, all the smooth planes and angles. That was very early in their days on the ground, before war touched them, before Mount Weather, before ALIE. Before Praimfaya and six years in space. His skin had stretched smoothly across solid muscle, beginning to tan from the rays of the sun. Now he was pale, the years of darkness had seeped the color from him, casting every scar in sharp relief.

Her eyes stung with the pain of each bit of marred skin and the memories they held. It would take her years to learn the story behind each one. Bellamy saw the hurt on Clarke’s face and his heart ached to mend hers.

“Clarke,” he breathed, a prayer on his lips. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Catching his face in her hands, his day-old stubble scratching her palms, she captured his lips with hers. Bellamy groaned loudly when she took his bottom lip between her teeth. His hands took a firm hold of her ass, lifting her easily against him. He stumbled blindly towards the bunk and set her gently on the worn blankets. Bellamy took hold of her shirt, pulling it over her head. Clarke had her own collage of scars decorating the once flawless skin.

Standing a moment, he popped the button of his pants, slipping them down over his hips, his erection sprung free, eagerly pointing to everything he had ever wanted.

Clarke laid back on the bed, pulling at the laces of her leather pants.

He set his hands to hers, halting her movements. “Did I tell you how incredibly sexy you are in these?” he asked, his pupils blown wide with desire, the rumble of his voice like entering Earth’s atmosphere.

Brushing her fingers aside, he tugged at the laces, the leather falling open with every pull. Bellamy gripped the fabric at her hips, peeling it from her heated skin. He crawled onto the bed, settling himself in the welcoming cradle of her hips. Sinking his weight against Clarke, Bellamy kissed her softly.

Clarke’s hands traced patterns across the plains of his back, lacing her fingers through the notches in his spine. Her eyes welled with fresh tears, her heart overfilled with joy at having him returned to her. She would have waited as long as it took to spend the rest of her life by his side.

“Don’t ever leave me again,” she whispered, her brow set in that determined Clarke way of hers.

“A thousand angry grounders couldn’t make me move from this spot,” he promised, lifting his hips and setting himself to her entrance.

Clarke wrapped her toned legs around him, pressing him forward. It had been a very long time, and she was tight. Bellamy sank slowly into her, desperate for every second to last an eternity. They moaned in unison as he buried himself to the hilt in her welcoming heat. Pulling back, the emptiness was soothed only by his return, more forcefully, claiming her. Bellamy branded her heart with his love making, ruining her for anyone else that may try. Clarke Griffin belonged to him, body and soul, just as completely as he belonged to her. From the beginning, they had been the missing half of the other. He was the heart and she the head, together they could move mountains. Together they could survive the end of the world. It had always been that way for them: together. Having been apart only set that fact as a law of the universe.

Bellamy thrust into Clarke with a driving rhythm, his lips painting searing kisses over her skin. His fingers grazed down, across the hills and valleys of her body, detouring at each breast. He took one tip between his teeth, nipping gently at the dusky point. Bellamy dipped one hand low between them, seeking her most sensitive part. Rubbing his finger in tight circles over her clit, he whispered into her ear all the things he’d wanted to say to her during those two thousand days.

Clarke’s nerves were ablaze from the heat of it all. Having him back, the way he touched her, the sound of his voice whispered low, for only her to hear. She was burning in Praimfaya once more and it was perfect. Surely the whole world would burn along with them.

Nearing the edge, Clarke clenched around him, moaning her ecstasy into the dim light of the bunker.

“I want to feel you come around me, Princess,” Bellamy’s rough words, combined with the delicious pressure of his circling fingers and the deep thrusting of his hips, sent her clear into oblivion.

She shouted his name, pulling him in, dragging him into the abyss beside her. Bellamy thrust once more, coming undone, surrendering himself completely.

Tipping to the side to avoid crushing her, Bellamy danced feather light kisses along her shoulder and tugged her close into the crook of his arm.

Exhausted but unwilling to sleep, they lay in each other’s arms until well past sunrise. They spoke quietly about everything. They spoke about their rocky start, the times they would have had if the weight of the world hadn’t been on their shoulders. Bellamy told her about his favorite of her messages and all the things that had happened on The Ring. He told her about Monty and Harper and their constant on again off again which was currently on again. He surprised her with tales of Murphy’s undying devotion for Emori. She told him about Madi and any memory should could think of that wasn’t centered around him.

Bellamy and Clarke had spent so much time apart, every single second was precious and they weren’t ready just yet to leave their little bubble. The others could do without them for another day. They huddled close together, in constant contact. He reveled in the fact that he could lean over and kiss her just because he wanted to. She reveled in the sounds he made when she climbed across his lap and began rocking her hips against him.

The world had made them both wait, now it was their time. For now, the world could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happened. He heard her, all those years. Fight me about it.


End file.
